43
Youngstown teachers’ online wish lists give community chance to lend hand
Photo
Jane Haggerty, math coach at P. Ross Berry Eighth and Ninth Grade Academy in Youngstown, uses an ordinary deck of playing cards to help students improve their math skills. The playing cards were on her teacher wish list.
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
A deck of play- ing cards might seem like an odd request for a classroom, but students at P. Ross Berry Eighth and Ninth Grade Academy use the cards to brush up on their math skills.
That’s why Jane Haggerty, a math coach at the school, requested the cards on her teacher wish list.
The full collection of teacher wish lists is on the school district’s website at www.youngstown.k12.oh.us. Anyone who can grant a wish may drop items off at the school or bring them to the district’s communications department at 20 W. Wood St.
“You can do a lot with playing cards as far as math goes,” said Haggerty, who’s been with the district for 11 years.
The cards can be used in algebraic equations as well.
Eighth-grade honors students used the cards Thursday to play multiplication war.
They were divided into pairs and each given half a deck. Each student in a pair lays down a pair of cards and multiplies them together. The highest product wins that round, and the student with those cards keeps those cards as well as those of his or her opponent.
Face cards equal 10, and aces equal one for purposes of the game.
Lavell Collins, 13, and De’Nicholas Cryzer, 14, battled it out with Lavell collecting more cards in the early rounds of play.
Then Haggerty changed the game. Each student laid down three cards, multiplied the first two and added the third. The winner was the highest product.
Tanaya Beacham, 13, and Yexica Alvarez, 13, went through a rapid-fire round of the game. Tanaya said she likes math on “lucky days.”
Math coaches support math teachers as they use student data to determine where students require more help.
“The kids enjoy multiplication war, and it helps them to think quickly,” Haggerty said.
Bunny Stuber, a special-education teacher at East High School, is wishing for craft supplies as well as magazines with photographs of food and families.
“We’re studying the food groups, and sometimes we make posters,” Stuber said.
Earlier this week, the class was leafing through magazines in search of pictures of kitchen utensils.
Teachers in the city school system sometimes buy and bring in items for their classrooms themselves.
Because hers is considered a vocational class, Stuber has a school budget for supplies, but it gets spent pretty quickly.
“Magazines are something you don’t really think about,” Stuber said. “You read them, cut out what you want and then throw them away.”
She’s hoping that instead of tossing them, members of the community will contribute them to her class.
“If people have them, and they’d be willing to donate, I’d be very grateful,” Stuber said.